Senior Member
Registered: 09-11-06
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I wasn't going to post this in the forum, but after reading others who are grieving just as hard as I have been, I changed my mind.
I am sitting here reading through the forums as I do nightly. And again there are tears for this GREAT person we have lost. One thing that I keep thinking about is why I can’t get past this grief. I have lost family and close friends in my life and yes I grieved in my own way, but this is so different. My sense of loss is greater than I have ever experienced before. Why does this man I hardly know, other than watching his televised series, have such an impact on me?
Okay I have done it, I spent the entire night writing, but as I read what I have written below, I have a sense I need to share this with someone. More for myself, I must admit, but just maybe others will see how Steve Irwin truly did effect their daily lives, even if in a subconscious way. Much of what is written is a personal account of parts of my life. Please bear with me, for once you get to the end you will see why I had to explain in the way I did. This little exercise was a cleansing for me, and something that I should have done years ago. I am putting some of my ghosts in front of me and dealing with them for first time in my life. I had not intended for this to be a mini-novel, it just developed into one. My sincere apologizes to you in advance for its length.
My husband and I were talking about it this evening. It is even hard for me to talk to him about, every time I start talking about Steve I get choked up and tears are in my eyes. I decided to sit down here and put all my thoughts in writing and see if they made and sense, rhyme or reason as to why I am having a hard time coming to grips with Steve Irwin’s death.
Steve Irwin’s Impact on my life.
Part of my reason for this grief I feel is that Steve Irwin had this childlike quality about him. Please do not take that in the wrong way, because childlike is a good way to be. We all should get in touch with the child in us. As adults we always shut so many emotions inside us because we are ""adults"". Steve didn't, he wore his heart and his feelings on his sleeve, never afraid to show the world laughter, love, to be zany just because that was how he felt at the time, and to cry. Steve was never embarrassed of his public tears or made apologizes for them. When he hurt, you knew. He also approached life without fear, we are not born with the emotion fear, it is taught to us by our surroundings. Children do not fear the unknown as an adult does; a child’s curiosity knows no fear, until we or society teaches them to. Steve knew this and why he introduced nature and wildlife children as soon as they were born. He was teaching them not to be afraid, but he and Terri were also teaching to know the boundaries that were expectable within the wildlife domain.
Another reason I am taking this so hard is that Steve lived his life just as he wanted to do. Again he made no apologizes, he was doing exactly what he wanted. He was following in his father’s footsteps, building on his father’s dreams and truly loved this path he had chosen for himself. How many times have each of us thought to our selves, “I wish I had done this with my life or done that with my life?” I know I did for years. That is not to say I was unhappy with my choices, but at the same time I always knew I could have made better ones. Steve inspired us.
When I was six years old I had lost both my younger brothers to spinal meningitis and before the age of eight, my father. My sisters and I were too young to understand why my brothers were no longer living with us, in my mind at the time I just thought they went some where else to live. After the death of my brothers, my parents separated and my Mother moved us girls a ways from our father and his family, so we had little contact with them over the next two years. I do remember that he was a carpenter and up to the time I started school, I was his little helper. I would go on jobs with him all the time. My father was full Native Cherokee and I remember that he was always out in the wilderness poking around looking at rattlers and such, telling me to always look and listen to what Mother Earth was saying. Just plain enjoying all the Nature had there to provide us a glimpse of. I loved this man who was so wise and knew all about nature. Then one day he was gone too. My Mother simply said your Father has died and that was that. We did not attend a funeral and life just went on.
I have always had a love for animals and even as a child would find injured or wounded animals and try to aid them. Our house was a menagerie of animals all the time. Laughing now, because my mother is NOT an animal person, luckily my step-pop was. Mother would come home and find the strangest critters in a boxes in my bedroom. My Grandfather, God Rest his Soul, was like me too. What I couldn’t cure or heal, he usually could. He always told me I took after my Father’s people and their Cherokees ways. I was taught to cure but NOT to tame; these critters had their place on this earth for a reason. There were those rare occasions when a raccoon, a skunk or other critter couldn’t be released back into the wild again because they had been maimed so badly they would have not have been able to survive on their own. In those cases they, when they could, would be introduced to the barn.
Grandfather had cattle and horses and from the time I could walk that was where I was down in the barn. We (by we, I mean my Grandparents, I was practically camped out with them more than I was with my Mother) had cats, dogs, rabbits and these occasional raccoons, skunks, badgers etc. Other than the fences for the cattle and horses, there were no cages. Grandfather let the other animal come and go as they pleased. He would always say to me, “They know each morning and evening when feeding time is and where, no need to cage them.” Yes, there were times when one of our adopted critters would disappear; Grandfather would say they are with Mother Earth. Meaning that either they had learned to hunt for themselves again and returned to the wild or literally that they had passed and where now part of Mother Earth. As sad as I was that they were gone, I learned over time, they were where it was best for them.
I married young, moved up to Yankee land of Vermont. No offense to any New Englanders intended, believe me, but I had spent half my life up to this point bouncing back and forth from the Carolinas, Texas and Massachusetts. I am and will always be more southern than I was ever northern. So to marry a southern girl and bring her to Vermont and think she is going to instantly blended in. Laughing as I say, well it doesn’t happen that easily. I was lucky to be able to continue raising horses, a few head of cattle and having a menagerie of animals. I also was blessed with four children, my oldest, Mia passed on when she was an infant. She, I pray stands near my Grandfather and Steve and they will teach her the ways of the animals.
In addition to my other three children, I kinda-sorta adopted three more. I was Mom to everyone in the small town my husband lived in. There were occasions as pre-teens and teens do, there would be a rebellion in the home. I would always offer my house to other parents as a safe haven till things cooled down and a half way agreement could be worked out between child and parent. To make it short, for one reason or another on three occasions, the child moved in and never left. So I raised six children, three of my own and three who I loved just as much as if I had birthed them myself. All of the children were raised around animals and taught to respect their ways.
Even though my Grandfather wasn’t living that close to me, he would call three or four times a week. My Grandparents would visit as often as they could. He helped me to teach the children the ways of the Cherokee, even though he himself was not of Native blood, he believed in many of our ways. But in later years he explained that each band of People are more alike in their ways, than they are different. “From Mother Earth, only take what you need, use every bit that you take and always return a portion back as a way of expressing your gratitude”. I am proud to say my Grandfather lived this way in every thing he did. He always walked the Good Red Road no matter what path Grandfather Spirit thrust him upon.
As my children grew, my lifestyle was forced to change in a big way. A depression hit the little area we lived in and all of the manufacturing moved out of the area. These businesses were the sole employment for 90% of everyone within five or six towns that were in range of them. I no longer could be just be mother, home maker and rancher I had to take a job myself. As much as it broke my heart, within a few years it became clear that my horses and cattle had to be sold. This was devastating to me, because I have and will always feel that any of Grandfather Spirit’s critters are my children as well. It was like seeing one of my children leave home.
At the end of this same year, I received a phone call saying my Grandfather had terminal cancer. He fought for life with all the treatments, but it was to no avail. The children and I visited with him on many occasions during this time, but eighteens months to the day he learned he had cancer, I received another phone call. It was my grandmother saying, Grandfather wanted to speak with me. We talked briefly; he wanted me to bring the children down to see him that day. He was so weak and barely able to talk. I knew his time was short, so I called the schools and told them I would be pulling them out of their classes early that day and drove straight to my Grandparents. My Grandfather did not look good at all; it made my heart ache to see this once virile, active man all shriveled up and bed-ridden. He asked to talk to my oldest son and then each and every one of the six children. He had taken my three kinda-sorta adopted children into his heart, just as I had. They were his grandsons just as if born to me. When he had got to my youngest, the only girl of the brood, I asked for to wait a bit and told him he needed to rest. He for the first time in his life snapped at me and said bring Jaimelynn in here. My daughter was only five at the time and she was the apple of his eye. She climbed up in his bed and cuddled up to him as she always did. They chatted for a bit, her giggling as he always made her do. After a bit I said I needed to talk him, and shooed the children outdoors to play. I told my Grandfather he needed to rest, his reply was, “Soon I will have all the rest I will ever need”. With tears, I told him, once again how much I loved him and gave him a hug. He said he was thirty so I said I would go make some ice chips for him. As I was doing this, I talked to my Grandmother again. I asked her how much longer the doctors felt my Grandfather had, she said not long. Then we both heard this choking, rattling sound. A sound I will never forget in my entire life. My Grandfather had passed on. He knew his time was near and his last wish was to speak to his grandchildren, especially his precious granddaughter.
Arrangements were made; the children and I drove down for the services. I love my Grandmother dearly, but probably will never understand her ways. She is one who never ever shows any emotion. No were no tears that day and stern warnings to us all not to go making fools of ourselves by blubbering all over the place. “That my Grandfather had lived a good life and was in God’s hands now happy and safe”. As I write this I can hear Grandfather just as if he was standing here next to me mumbling under his breath, “Daayum Irishwomun” for my Grandmother came from good ole Irish stock that had come to US to help build the railway system back in 1880. The children and I returned to Vermont that weekend and life went on.
Then in 1997 I saw my first episode of The Crocodile Hunter, I was hooked on Steve Irwin from that very first show. Here was a man that not only loved animals, but put his money where his mouth was and bravely faced dangers to protect these animals. A man that had such a zeal for life, and such an inquiziative way about him. He would pick up those animals, snakes and reptiles just so we could get a closer look and in time he would calm those creatures with his voice. Not that they were any less dangerous, but you could see they were calmer. Yes many times I would think no way I would ever do such things, but I amired him for it all the same. Plus the show was in Australia, mercy me I had been saying to my husband for years over and over, when we retire I want to go to Australia. People could have their France, Italy and other countries, but Australia made me think of home. My husband would laugh and say, nice to have dreams, but do count on it. Oh well I would have my dreams then.
By 1999, as happens with children, all my sons had grown and moved out making lives of their own. My daughter was 16 and active with her social life. I was facing empty nest syndrome. Not facing it well either, I’ll tell you. I had been very active in my children activities, holding every postion in the PTA for fourteens years, Boy Scout Unit Leader, even Scout Master for fours years while district was trying to find a man to take over the pack, Little League Coach or Assistant Coach, Soccer Assistant Coach, Booster Club Mom, Drama Club Aide, etc. etc. the list goes on. One day it hit me, “What was I going to do with all this free time”.
I had a successful career, climbed the corporite ladder to District Manager. Each and every time I would watch The Crocodile Hunter, saw Terri and Steve Irwin and as much as I enjoyed the show, I felt like I was missing out on something in my life. I wanted what? I had a big beautiful home with all my lovely flower gardens, a job that was ok, children who for the most part never gave me a lick of trouble. The oldest son married with a son of his own, whom I spoil to pieces. What was missing?
In the fall of 1999, one day I was home alone cleaning and thinking. I had just made my five year milestone from my last bout of cancer. I was still cancer free still, hoorah for me. But there was still a little tiny voice in my head saying five years is good but the next five will tell. That evening my husband came home and I said I wanted to do more with our lives, travel some, do some exploring of new places, be adventerous. He laughed and every day life an adventure, what fool ideas did I have going on. Well for first time in my life, I bristled. I told him I wanted to go over seas and travel. I had taking the children every summer on trips all over the US and now I would like to travel overseas. He told me I was crazy, I am sad to say. We never argued in the entire 25 years of marriage not once, but this time I wasn’t backing down. I wanted to do something I wanted and truly felt in the end it would be to the families advantage. A learning expierence for us all. There was only him, myself and my daughter living at home, I had built up a wonderful retirement nest egg from trading stocks and put particial dividend earning in a savings account. So money was not the issue. Only the williness to do it as a family. The more we talked about what we each other had for goals for the rest of lives, the sadder I had become. We had just grown in two different directions over the years. He with his social elbow rubbing climbing up the ladder ways, golfing with the sorta rich set, eatting out at fancy restrauts and me going along many times dreading the day or evening. I know poor me right, 75% of women would give their eye teeth to live as I was, but I hated it. That saying about country girls, “ya can dress em up in fancy clothes and jewelry, but underneath they still a country girl”. Well that was me, I was much happier outdoors with my children, animals and flowers than I ever was hubnobbing with the social crowd. My husband and I seperated shortly after this. The idea was we were going to try dating all over again to see if we rally liked the persons we had become.
I moved into a small country house that a friend owned and let me stay for practically nothing as long as I help her fix the place up. My daughter adjusted fairly well to this seperation as for in many ways it didn’t effect her life all that much. She still went to the same High School, had the same friends and saw her father probally more than she did before. Then in March of 2000 a friend of mine in Texas said that they were going for an interview for Delta Airlines. That Delta was starting up a new Security Division. I was envious of her. That weekend I said something to my husband that I would like to apply and see if I could get a position in one of the airports near us He laughed and said they weren’t looking for middle aged women. Grrrrrrrn here, because I now had become pretty dang independent for myself as I now was on my own more or less for the first time in my life. I called my girlfriend in Texas, asked her for more specifics. She told me they were doing the interviews in Atlanta and the date. I got myself booked on a flight and down I went.
To make a long story short, I was hired that very day as a Concourse Security Supervisor for this new division they were putting together. They would take two weeks for all the FBI backgrounds checks and other paperwork, but after cleared all middle and upper management would begin five weeks of semenars. The hitch was it would be there in Atlanta.
I flew back that evening called my husband and told him that I had been hired, that from Nov 1st to Dec 15th I would be required to be in Atlanta during the training Semenar time. Plus this position was triple the money I was currently making, plus other benefits as well as flight benefits for myself and my whole immediate family, what did he think? He basically said I should be happy with what I had and leave it at that. Wrong answer!! I asked him if our daughter could stay with him during the week during those five weeks. He sputtered a bit about not knowing how to deal with a teenage girl. To his defense he wasn’t involved with the children much and was away from the home much of the time the years they were growing up, but he felt that he was advancing his career hobnobbing. And to be totally truthful this time, I was being a bit selfesh, I wanted this position and told him so. I said they could survive Mon. through Fri with out me for five weeks.
Well saddly to say my husband and I totally parted our ways over those five weeks, no fault of his or mine.. We filed for divorce. This away time brought it home to both of us. He liked the social life and I liked the country and wanted to travel as I had when the children were growing up.We still are good friends to this day, but both of us happier now than we ever were together. I moved to Atlanta, or more correctly close to. I found a lovely duplex out as close as one could call it as being country in that area. My daughter would fly down every Fri. after school and fly back every Sun. night. She spent every vacation and holiday with me as well as her summers. As she was a Junior in High School and I couldn’t nor did I want to disrupt her life any more than it already had been. I could work my shifts around her schedule and would fly up for all her school functions during the week. She recently said to me, “Momma you know I think we got closer to each other after you and Daddy split up, than I had ever been before”. She was right. Before she had been so busy with her social life, that there were times I would only see her during a meal or when she came in at her curfew and went to bed. But during her last year and a half of High School when she was with me, it was just her and me. We did everything together.
I continued to watch the Crocodile Hunter, but now a much happier person. Each show as I would watch the more and more I admired these people, Steve and Terri Irwin. When their daughter Bindi was born, I cheered and cried along with them as only parents can at the first site of their newborn. With each show I would watch so would my fasination with Australia grow.
The very first place my daughter and I used our flight privilages to was Australia. Wish I could say it was to Queensland, but it wasn’t. I had friends in Western Australia and paid them a visit. This was the first of many flights over the pond for me. Each time visiting areas where I knew someone. For four years Australia was like a second home to me. I was lucky to meet Steve Irwin, very briefly that it was, but it was not in Australia. Him and Terri had a layover over in Atlanta during a flight I think to California and when I found out they were on the passenger list on a flight inbound, I made sure I was at the gate when that plane unloaded it’s passengers. Being in a Middle Management position, I was not able to do anything as uncouth as ask for his autograph, but believe me, I sure would have loved to. But I was able to walk up to him and briefly shake his hand. Greet him and Terri and say how much his shows meant to me. He smiled, beamed is a more accurate way of discribing his smile, because when he smiles it shines from both his heart and his eyes. Then he said with his Aussie way, “Good on ya mate” and they were rushed off to board the shuttle cart to take them to their next outboarding gate on another concourse. I remember standing there, thinking merccccccccy me, I had just met the Irwins, brief as it may have been and had touched the hand of Steve Irwin, a man who had drawn me in hook, line and sinker to his life style, his love of his family and most important of all, getting the word out to the world that we must preserve wildlife. My hero! I felt like a schoolgirl with a crush on a rock star, laughing here again now. Middle aged women with a school girl crush. You know that feeling like you’re never going to ever, ever, ever wash that hand again kinda feeling. I would fly to Australia on these mini layovers any chance I had a little extended time off. I vowed that very same day through, that the next three week vacation I got, I was going to Queensland and visit the Australian Zoo.
As life has a way of doing, my life got turned upside down in 2003. After 9-11, Airport Security was being turned over to the new Government FAA Division, TSA. As it is the way with Government Departments it took them several years to get their act together and finally in ernest take over Airport Security. Also during TSA setup time they made a deal with Delta not to hire more than 10% current agent staff nor any of Delta’s management, that management would be absorbed in later after they had fully taking over Airport Security. Well DUH don’t take a rocket scientist to know that if you wait until you have hired, trained, and now have a fully operating security team in place, you don’t have any immediate placement positions left. Needless to say 1,000’s of current Delta Security people were without jobs. Some, if willing to move to other Delta Airport Stations around the country were transferred. I was offered several transfers, but they were further away that I was willing to go from my daughter. Even though she had graduated from High School the previous summer I still wanted her or I to be able to get to each other within a few hours if needed. She could fly to Atlanta in a couple of hours or to Texas in three hours. In Apr. of 2003, I chose to moved back to the state I loved the most Texas. Believe it or not Texas and Australia have much of the same geographical features. Guess that why both my favorites places to be huh.
Now this was the best decsion I have ever made in my life. For in Jan of 2004, I met the most wonderful person in the entire world. He is so generous, caring and understanding. He has the same passion for animals as I do, the great outdoors, walking and exploring. Taking pictures of nature and wildlfie, well maybe not as many pictures as I take, but he enjoys it too. On Feb 17, 2005 we were married. He has two younger daughters that are still in school, one soon to be thirteen and the youngest nine. The youngest has the same love and curiousity of nature and wildlife that I do. Her and I go exploring around the lake that we live on. Have become good friends with all the waterfowl, especially when we carry a loaf of bread. She and I can sit on the edge of the lake with bread and ducks, geese loons and gulls will come right up in our laps. We have yet to entice any of the herons, pelicans, ibis, guinea hens or egrets to join us, they mainly swoop in and scoop up what slices we throw out into the lake. The first spring I moved here I was sitting on the bank in one of the coves and I looked up to see three pure white peacocks. I was lucky enough to get a picture of one. My first thought was that they must be albinos, but was later informed by an old timer near us, that they are Japanese peacocks . That years and years ago some must have escaped from whoever had brought them to Texas and they survied out in the wildness. Each spring a few migrate to our lake and stay a month or so and are gone again. I take pictures of hawks, eagles, doves and way to many others types of birds to mention. Plus opposums, armadillos and yes water moccasins and rattlers. For I, like Terri and Steve, believe in the values of teaching children not to be afraid of any creature, but to learn to respect any creature and treat it to be a dangerous as it can be. More people who panic and show fear as a reaction, get into trouble with wildlife then if they had just calmly backed up in retreat until they are a safe distance away would have. My step-daughters watch The Crocodile Hunter with me and it a valuable learning experience, because we discuss why Steve did what he did or said what he said. We place it to the level of what if you encountered situations right here around us.
Needless to say that I am so very happy with my life as it is now and though Steve was not directly involved in getting me to where I am now, he was instrumental in an indirect way. Watching his show, him and Terri living the lifestyle I did at one time. Of course theirs was in a much more expanded version that mine ever was, but we shared the same principles of life. This made me ask myself guestions. Say to myself, I used to be like him. Living the way I wanted, caring and protecting my family, my animals and nature around me. Where did I take the wrong path and move away from all that? Was is really that important for me to get back to that way of living again? Do I have the strength and percerverance to get back there should I want to? Well obvisouly, I did change my life drastically and I did get back on the Good Red Road again, but I truthfully I feel if I hadn’t watched The Crocodile Hunter all those years, I would never have guestioned myself or my values.
Okay reading this I have also come to the following conclusions as to why I also grive so for this man Steve Irwin.
1. For obvious reasons, even though he was just a television star, his so bigger than life itself ways, over the years we took him into our hearts.
2. His childlike ways as I mentioned earlier, for me personally is like losing my daughter all over again. The grief of knowing they passed before their time. The grief that their was so much more they had to give and share with us and we have lost that forever. My grief for my three month old daughter was a silent one. She was 12 weeks premature and frought fircely those three months to live, but in the end it was just too much for her and she went with the angels. My husband would never touch her or rarely even came to the Neo-Natal hospital Mia had been flown too. Just his way is all, he didn’t want to get attached because if she had died, it would hurt more. I hurt deeply, but was unable to share that with anyone, so I just kept it buried within myself all these years.
3. His ways, his enthusiasim for life, the way he carried his emotions on his sleeve, his love and devotion to everything and everyone around him, his sincerity, and most of all his concern as conservasionist and a wildlife rehabilitator they are all traits that both my Father and my Grandfather had. Again two people who I loved more than life and was not allowed to grive properly for. Life just went on after their deaths and I silently held my sense of loss to myself.
I grieve deeply for Steve Irwin for who you were and what this world has lost, I grieve deeply for my Father who I never really got to know and I grieve deeply for my Grandfather who in much of his life was the father I never had. All three of you had so much in common that is it uncanny, I grieve for you, miss you. Last but not least, I grieve deeply for my Daughter Mia, who I never got to see grow up, to teach you how to ride horses, to teach you that beauty is all around us if you open your eyes and heart to it, to you do all the wondrous things children do, or kiss you scraped elbow or knee, to wipe your tears when you hurt or hear you say I love you Momma.
My greatest prayer is that you all get to know each other in heaven, for I truly believe you would like each other. And that you know now that I am finally allowed to grieve for each of you and that the pain of your loss has been with me since your parting of Mother Earth. As the tears flow, know that they are cleansing me of pain, also know that I will be able heal now. I will always love you and miss you until the day I am standing there beside you all. These words that I have written have been a long time in coming, and Steve Irwin, may Grandfather Spirit forever Bless you because once again in an indirect way you have touched my soul.
E me nv (Amen)
ayu uqauhiu nihi (I Loves You) Do'dagag'hvi (until we see each other again) Jadaxsastesti (take care)
Dove
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My name is Amy and Im 37 years old and when my brother told me about Steve Irwin I cried all day. I lost my grandmother 4 years ago and I think about her and cry 
sometimes. I cant believe it. My nephews are 7 and 3 and they would sit and watch the crocodile hunter with me for and hour 5 days a week. I Miss Steve im sad now